Living up to his character in the film, Vin Diesel was the most wanted this weekend as cinema-goers flocked to see his survival epic. Riddick managed $18.7m, landing it the top spot for this weekend’s box office rankings.

Vin Diesel poses with his co-stars at the Riddick movie premiere

But while leading the box office is no bad thing, $18.7m does represent a slightly lower total than was predicted for the third entry to the Riddick franchise. Experts – and certainly the studio – had predicted/hoped (depending on which side you fall) that the dark action adventure would achieve something north of $20m, but it wasn’t to be.

Good old Mr Diesel admitted recently that the success of Riddick was conducive in him having a roof over his head. "If it didn't work out, I would have lost my house," Diesel revealed in an interview with MSNBC's theGrio "Everything I had in my life was leveraged to make this movie,” he added.

"The producer role - the stakes were higher than any producer I know because the skin in the game was real, and I was so committed to answering this growing request from the social media fans to continue this character. The only way I could have pulled it off was by leveraging everything."

Still impressing, even in its fourth week of release, is Lee Daniel’s The Butler, which managed to add $8.9m to its total, bringing it up to $91m overall. Instructions Not Included, which wowed us with a $10m opening weekend, carried on strong with $8.1m. We’re The Millers still lingers in the top five, dropping one place and grabbing $7.25m along the way.

Finishing off the top five is the Disney animation, Planes, which, in its fifth week of release, managed a further $4.2m. The rest of the top ten looks something like: One Direction: This is Us ($4.1m) Elysium ($3.1m) Blue Jasmine ($2.6m) Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters ($2.5m) and The World’s End ($2.3m). (Box Office Mojo)